


But of course they're part of you now

by RatQueer



Category: Battle Royale - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - High School, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't Have to Know Canon, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Gun Violence, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mind Games, Mind the tags people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-02 06:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14538795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RatQueer/pseuds/RatQueer
Summary: Rose Lalonde (Female Student No. 3, 11th Grade Class B, Sburb Senior High School) felt like nothing was going to get done if they just sat and let this man talk. Her impatience getting the better of her, she pushed back her chair and stood up.“What are we doing here? I thought we were going to Washington D.C.”Hussie smirked dryly. “Yes, of course. Very well, then. The reason why you’re all here today…” he paused as he moseyed to the teacher's desk and turned back to face her, “is to kill each other.”Everyone froze and complete silence descended upon the room. Rose felt like she must have heard him incorrectly. It was those pills Mother was making her take, they had possible side effects of hallucinations. She must be hallucinating.“Your class has been selected for this year’s Programme,” Hussie continued.Karkat Vantas (Male Student No. 15) swore loudly.





	1. Student List

11th Grade Class B, Sburb Senior High School

Student List

Males

  1. Ampora, Cronus
  2. Ampora, Eridan
  3. Captor, Mituna
  4. Captor, Solluxander
  5. Egbert, Jonathan
  6. English, Jacob
  7. Makara, Gamzee
  8. Makara, Kurloz
  9. Nitram, Rufioh
  10. Nitram, Tavros
  11. Strider, David
  12. Strider, Dirk
  13. Umbrum, Caliborn
  14. Vantas, Kankri
  15. Vantas, Karkat
  16. Zahhak, Equius
  17. Zahhak, Horuss



Females

  1. Crocker, Jane
  2. Harley, Jade
  3. Lalonde, Rosanna
  4. Lalonde, Roxanne
  5. Leijon, Meulin
  6. Leijon, Nepeta
  7. Maryam, Kanaya
  8. Maryam, Porrim
  9. Megido, Aradia
  10. Megido, Damara
  11. Peixes, Feferi
  12. Peixes, Meenah
  13. Pyrope, Latula
  14. Pyrope, Terezi
  15. Serket, Aranea
  16. Serket, Vriska
  17. Umbrum, Calliope




	2. Start Game -- 34 students remaining

The first thing Rosanna Lalonde (Female Student No. 3, 11th Grade Class B, Sburb Senior High School) was aware of was a cold plank of laminated wood pressing into her cheek. The next thing she became aware of was that this was not an ordinary sensation, for she never fell asleep at her desk.

She sat up quickly, looking around. She was in an ordinary classroom, at first appearance. But no, something was off -- her classmates were all in various states of wakefulness and the windows were boarded shut with steel plates. Rose shook her head, trying to clear the film of haziness that engulfed her.

Yes, that’s right -- they were all going to Washington D.C., the capital of the Republic of Skaia. Rose had been talking to Jade Harley (Female Student No. 2, same class) and John Egbert (Male Student No. 5) when… she supposed that’s when she had fallen asleep. She checked her wrist, before remembering that her watch had broken in a fight with Vriska Serket (Female Student No. 16).

Well, fuck. She couldn’t deduce from the boarded-up windows what time of day it was, and Dave Strider (Male Student No. 11), who always knew what time it was, was across the room, in deep conversation with Karkat Vantas (Male Student No. 15). Rose couldn’t make out what they were saying from across the room, but based on the way Karkat was gesticulating wildly at his neck, he was freaking out about something. What a surprise, Rose thought dryly; Karkat was always freaking out over something. She honestly didn't know what Dave saw in him.

The sound of metal hitting something drew her attention away from Karkat Vantas and she watched, mildly interested, as Vriska Serket hit her neck against the edge of her desk. What was she trying to accomplish? Rose wondered, and then light reflecting off of Rufioh Nitram's (Male Student No. 9) watch caught something silver on Vriska's neck.

"Fuck!" Vriska roared, while Terezi Pyrope (Female Student No. 14), who sat next to her, tried to calm her down.

Wait… Rose turned to look at the people around her, and saw that a thin silver… _collar?_ was wrapped snugly around each of their necks.

Rose felt her own neck, and discovered that she, too, was wearing a dog collar of sorts, and as she tugged at it she realized that it probably wouldn’t budge. What the hell was this? What was the point?

“Rose!”

That was Rose’s twin, Roxy Lalonde (Female Student No. 4), leaning across to her. She was also wearing a collar, and an uncharacteristic frown. Rose stopped fussing with her collar (ugh, how she loathed thinking about that word in conjunction with herself) and turned to face her sister.

“Rose, do you know where we are?”

“I was hoping you did,” Rose replied, looking around at the boarded-up windows. “I don’t think we’re in D.C., though.”

Roxy snickered and opened her mouth to say something, but the door opening cut off her words.

A tall man walked into the room. He was an average-looking, brunette with a printed shirt and grey sweatpants. He looked almost bored, and the wide grin on his face looked all the more sinister for it. The class immediately quieted, sensing that this was not a man to cross. He walked down the rows of desks, passing right by Rose and Roxy. Once he reached the whiteboard at the front, he turned around. His smile was gone.

“I hope you all slept well,” he said, looking around the room. Nobody responded, and his grin returned with a vengeance. “I am your new instructor, Andrew Hussie.”

He turned to the whiteboard and wrote his name down, and Rose saw Calliope Umbrum (Female Student No. 17) shift to whisper to Roxy.

Rose felt like nothing as going to get done if they just sat and let this man talk. Her impatience getting the better of her, she pushed back her chair and stood up, straightening her skirt (a nervous gesture, though she would never admit it). The class turned toward her, the anticipation in the air palpable.

“What are we doing here? I thought we were going to Washington D.C.”

Hussie’s lips formed a dry smirk. “Yes, of course. Very well, then. The reason why you’re all here today…” He paused as he moseyed to the teacher's desk, “is to kill each other.”

Everyone froze and complete silence descended upon the room. Rose felt like she must have heard him incorrectly. It was those pills Mother was making her take, they had possible side effects of hallucinations. She must be hallucinating.

“Your class has been selected for this year’s Programme," Hussie continued.

Karkat Vantas swore loudly.

**34 students remaining**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first work on this site, so feel free to leave me constructive criticisms!


	3. What you're doing right now is voicing your opposition to the government

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my promise for longer chapters hath gone unfulfilled

Everyone knew what the Programme was; it was a required subject for all fifth graders, though Rose's first brush with the Programme was much earlier. The day after she turned seven, Mother was drunk, as usual, and Roxy was sleeping, and Rose turned on the television. Surprisingly, one of Bill Nye's many shows wasn't playing (Rose had been under the impression that Bill Nye was all her mother watched). Instead, the local news was on.

“... the program in King County ended yesterday at 4:13 p.m.," read the reporter. "It has been 2 years since the last Programme was conducted here. The subject class was 11th Grade Class F from Slick Senior High School. The undisclosed location was Felt Island. The winner emerged after 2 days, 10 hours, and 2 minutes. The autopsies of the bodies revealed the causes of death for all 35 students killed: 16 from gunshot wounds, 10 from knife or blade wounds, 3 from blunt trauma, and one was strangled to death.”

The picture of the winner was displayed on the screen; a tall boy with an eyepatch over his right eye, wearing a hat and grinning at the camera lazily. The television declared him “Jack Noir -- the winner”.

She had asked Mother what the Programme was and received a drunken speech about how the Programme was for the good of the people and the military and the Republic of Skaia and that Rose should not oppose it no matter what. It was hardly helpful in furthering Rose's understanding.

So she did her own research. She and Roxy looked through the internet but only found Programme statistics and speeches from the Presidents about the good of the Programme. They went through the huge encyclopedia that Mother had laying around and found this:

' **Program.**   _n._  1. A planned series of future events, items, or performances. 2. A sheet or booklet giving details of items or performers at an event or performance. 3. A battle simulation conducted by the Republic of Skaia's ground defense forces, instituted for security reasons. Officially known as Battle Experiment No. 11 Programme. The first Programme was held in 1945. Fifty 11th-grade classes are selected annually (prior to 1979, forty-five classes were selected) to conduct the Programme for research purposes. Students in each class are forced to fight until one survivor is left. Results from this experiment are entered as data. The final survivor of each class (the winner) is provided with a lifetime pension and a card autographed by Her Imperious Condescension, the ruler of the Republic of Skaia.'

As Rose grew older, the local reports, given about every three years without any warning, grew more ominous to her. Out of all the eleventh-grade classes in the nation, fifty were given a guaranteed death sentence every year. That was 1500 children if each class had thirty students. And it wasn't simply a mass execution: the students were forced to turn on each other, to murder their friends. It was not-so-subtly terrifying.

But it was impossible to oppose the Programme. It was simply impossible to resist anything the Republic of Skaia did. Rose's late aunt had tried, and it had landed her dead (officially listed as an accident, of course, though in reality Special Defense soldiers had marched into the house and killed Rosalind Lalonde right in front of her sister and nieces).

So Rose decided to give in. That's what everyone was forced to do. There were around 61,200 eleventh grade classes in the nation, which made the odds of it happening to her, what, one in a thousand? And Rose, though she could often predict favorable outcomes for herself with frightening accuracy, had never had the luck of the draw. So she wouldn't be chosen, fuck off. That's what she had to believe, for her own dubiously intact sanity.

She had always been under the impression that she would never be in this situation. And now here she was, standing in a classroom full of walking corpses.

“Your class will be mentioned in this morning’s news, of course,” said Hussie after Rose had sat back down, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. "Since the Programme is conducted in secret, the details will stay undisclosed until the game ends. What else... oh yes, your parents have all been notified."

He gazed around at the stunned faces of the students. The only one who seemed to realize that this was really happening was Caliborn Umbrum (Male Student No. 13), who was grinning.

Hussie made a gesture and the doors to the classroom slid open. Three camouflaged soldiers entered the room and joined Hussie at the front of the classroom. There was a tall woman with a kinked afro who looked straightforward and not to be messed with, a grumpy-looking man who glared at everyone, and a rather frivolous, stupid-looking short man whose mouth was agape. They were each carrying guns -- M16's, though Rose could care less what kind of firearms they were -- and the classroom went still at the sight of them.

“There they are!” said Hussie, grinning. “Why don’t I introduce you to these Special Defense Force Officers? Miss Snowman, Mr. Crowbar, and Mr. Eggs are here to help get this show on the road!"

The obviously fake names were not a surprise, given the situation, but it did make Rose wonder whether Hussie's name was also a nom de guerre. She decided that it would not surprise her.

"Wait a fucking second."

The class turned toward Sollux Captor (Male Student No. 4).

"MT and I don't have parents so who did you contact for us?" Sollux asked, his thick lisp making Hussie stare at him in surprise for a minute.

"Hmm, you must be Solluxander Captor, right?" Hussie asked him finally, looking at him like a mildly interesting TV program. "Yes, I contacted the woman who runs your orphanage."

He turned away and Sollux sat down.

"Excuse me."

That was Kankri Vantas (Male Student No. 14), looking scared but determined.

"I have always thought that this Programme was barbaric, and I will refuse to take part in it," said Kankri, ignoring or perhaps not noticing the grin on Hussie's face as he ranted. "It contains many triggering subjects such as death, guns, and often rape and offers no special compensation for minority groups such as people of color, the disabled, or --"

"Let's see, you must be Kankri Vantas, right?" asked Hussie, cutting him off. "According to the report you're the one with the dangerous ideas. The classes are selected randomly and there are no special handicaps for anyone. If that isn't equity, what is?"

Kankri looked momentarily lost for words, before he plowed ahead: "The winners of these games usually suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or go insane, and --"

"Kankri, what you're doing right now is voicing your opposition to the government."

He didn't stop. "-- giving people a life pension does not make up for the mental damage they undergo --"

Hussie sighed and made a "go ahead" gesture at the Special Defense Soldiers as Kankri continued ranting about the waste of money and lives the Programme caused. Gunshots rang out.

Kankri stood a moment longer before his body collapsed onto his desk. Dave Strider, who sat directly behind him, lost his habitual stoic expression. He looked much like Rose felt; scared and shocked. She couldn't see Kankri very well from where she sat, but Karkat Vantas' deathly pale face told her that she didn't want to. Kankri's desk partner, Eridan Ampora (Male Student No. 2) screamed shrilly and leapt up.

Snowman turned her rifle on Eridan, firing at his arm. He stopped screaming and fell into his seat and the class fell into a stunned, horrified silence.

Snowman returned her rifle to her waist.

**33 students remaining**


	4. We will kill each other

Kankri’s blood quickly reached the edges of the desk and for a few seconds the only sound was a steady _drip_ as it fell onto the floor. Everyone stared at him as if not sure what they were seeing was real. How could a classmate -- someone most of them had known since elementary school -- be dead? Rose recalled fifth grade, when the Vantas-Leijons had moved into town (there were rumors that their father was the infamous revolutionary Stephen Vantas, but the four siblings were extremely secretive about their family, so they were unconfirmed). Their mother, Denice Leijon, had pulled some strings so that the younger siblings, Karkat and Nepeta, would be in the same class as Kankri and Meulin. She was probably regretting that decision now. Kankri wasn’t by any stretch someone that Rose would consider a friend; his long, rambling, virtue-signaling speeches were worse to her than even Cronus Ampora’s (Male No. 1) indiscriminate flirting, but his death seemed terrible and unbelievable even to her.

Rose glanced around at Kankri’s siblings. The Leijons, Meulin (Female No. 5) and Nepeta (Female No. 6) looked horrified. Karkat Vantas looked like he was about to faint or vomit. Rose herself felt nauseous and directed her attention away from the corpse with the rapidly expanding pool of blood.

“Now, I want all of you to take a lesson from your friend Kankri Vantas,” said Hussie, setting his hands on the teacher’s desk and looking round at them all. “Each and every one of you differs according to background, physical strength, dexterity, intelligence, et cetera, et cetera. We’re born unequal. So there will be no special treatment for anyone. Men and women will be treated the same, no handicaps for either side. Good news for the girls, though: according to Program statistics, women win 51% of the games. The motto here is, ‘I’m just like the others and the others are just like me.’

“Anyways, before we begin the Program, I’d like to go over a few rules.” He straightened up and turned to the board. “Of course, there is one very important rule. Almost everyone here must die. However…” Hussie picked up a black dry-erase marker and drew a big circle on the board. He drew nine vertical lines running through it and ten horizontal lines running across it. In the first column of the newly created squares he wrote “A=1,” “B=1,” etc….

He turned back to the class. “This is only a rough sketch of the island. Oh, I forgot to tell you all, we’re on an island with an approximate area of 2 miles. This island has never been used for the Programme before. We’ve had the residents evacuate the island. So there is absolutely no one else here. Once you leave the school, you are free to go anywhere on the island. But…” He turned back to the board and drew four _X_ ’s to the north, south, east, and west of the circle, “if you attempt to leave the island, one of these four guard ships will kill you. Think of the water around the school as a ‘forbidden zone’, so to speak. There is only one other forbidden zone at the start of the game: this school. It will become so twenty minutes after the last one of you leaves it. There will be more forbidden zones as the game goes on. If you are in one of them you must clear out as soon as possible because…” He took a deep breath… “of the collars around your necks.”

Several people, including Jake English (Male No. 6) and John Egbert, had not noticed the collars, and they touched them now, looking shocked.

“The collars track your location and pulse for us. They are 100% water- and shockproof, and nope, they can’t come off. They won’t come off. If you try to remove them… they will explode.”

Anyone who had been messing with their collar immediately let their hands go. Husse grinned.

“Why do we do this? It’s to keep you moving around. If you all stayed in one spot then the game wouldn’t proceed. The forbidden zones ensure that you keep moving. If you are caught in a forbidden zone after the designated time, your collar will explode."

No wonder Hussie called it a game; it was fucking outrageous, Rose thought incredulously. Herding them as if they were animals!

“So get the fuck out of there. During the hours of twelve and six every day, I will announce the deaths that have occurred over the last six hours as well as the location of two computer-selected Forbidden Zones. The computer will track your pulse and transmit the signal to explode the collar regardless of if you’re hiding in a house, or if you’ve dug yourself a hole to hide in. What else… each of you will receive a backpack that has water, food, a map, and a weapon in it. The weapons are randomly designated. Each of you is different, so this just adds another random element. Bring the packs in, guys!”

Snowman, Crowbar, and Eggs left the classroom and began hauling in large nylon day packs. Some of them were shaped oddly, as if a pole-shaped object was trying to poke out of them.

“Now for the most important points,” said Hussie, setting his hands back on the teacher’s desk. “One, there is a time limit. Shut up!”

This was directed at Jake English, who was whispering to his boyfriend Dirk Strider (Male No. 12). At Hussie’s words, Jake and Dirk turned back to face the front of the classroom faster than 13-year-old Dave could backtrack when confronted with a question about his sexuality. Roxy snickered.

“Listen up. A time limit. If 24 hours goes by and nobody dies, then it won’t matter where you are… all the remaining students’ collars will explode. There will be no winner. But less than one percent of Programmes end that way. Which brings me to my next, and possibly most important, point. Some of you may be thinking that killing your classmates is impossible. But don’t forget that there are others willing to do it.”

The change in the classroom at large was intense. Everyone began glancing round suspiciously, making nervous eye contact and quickly looking away. Only a few, like Rose’s desk partner Aranea Serket (Female No. 15), remained calm.

This was exactly the effect Andrew Hussie had been hoping for. He placed his hands on the lectern and looked around at everybody.

“Alright. In your desks you will find paper and pencils. Pull them out for me.”

Everyone timidly took out their writing materials. The classroom began to reek of Kankri’s blood. Rose recalled her aunt’s death and shuddered involuntarily.

“Now, I want you to all write something down for me. When memorizing something, it’s important to write it down. Write ‘We will kill each other’ three times.”

The sound of pencil hitting paper filled the room. Rose glanced around furtively. Hussie was glaring at Jake English. No one was looking at her.

Instead of _We will kill each other_ , Rose wrote, _At the northern tip._ The map on the board was too vague for anything else. After considering her paper, she added ‘We will kill each other’ twice under it. She glanced around again and tore her paper so that the note was detached from the rest of the paper. She’d give it to Kanaya Maryam (Female No. 7). Together they’d figure out a way out of this game.

As she thought this, Roxy tossed her hair back and Rose was reminded, with an odd pang, that Roxy was her sister. Shit, she didn’t want Roxy to die. She… she didn’t want anyone here to die.

She stared around at her fellow students. In a few days’ time, barring some kind of miracle, only one of them would be alive. She glanced back at Hussie. How many Programmes just like this one had he conducted? How many students had he watched die?

Fucking bastard.

Rose tried to force herself to look at this logically. Most likely scenario, she wound up dead. She could stay alive if she killed Caliborn, though, or Roxy…

Horrible images came up in her mind of Roxy with a gaping hole in her stomach from some unknown, terrible weapon, her internal organs spilling over the ground and a pool of blood around her; of Caliborn with his lower leg missing and his face covered in blood. She suddenly felt very much like vomiting or crying or _something_. And yet she could do nothing but follow Hussie’s directions (“Now write ‘If I don’t kill, I will be killed’ under it three times”), or she would follow in Kankri’s footsteps.

“When does the game start?”

Meenah Peixes (Female No. 12) had asked that question, grinning in a wide, unsettling way. It reminded Rose of one of the pictures used for the Szondi Test. Hussie smiled back at her.

“As soon as you leave here. So you’d better get a strategy, since it’s night now. Now then. The first student to leave will grab their backpack and take the top supplied pack from the pile. Then they will leave. Get out of the hall quickly; anyone loitering there will be shot. Two minutes later, the next student of the opposite sex will leave. We will alternate genders. Male, female, male, female, got it? Does everyone understand the rules? Any questions?”

No one said anything but everyone seemed to understand the rules.

“Good,” said Hussie, “because I wouldn’t have answered them anyway. Hold on a second…”

He pulled an envelope from his sweatpants pocket. “The first student is selected by lottery,” he explained. He opened the envelope and pulled out a small piece of paper folded over. After ceremoniously unfolding it, he looked back up and scanned the faces of the anxious students.

“The first student is Female No.7, Kanaya Maryam,” said Hussie.

Well, fuck.

Rose glanced down at her hand. The piece of paper on which she had scribbled _At the northern tip_ wasn’t going to get to Kanaya now. Perhaps she could…

She glanced at her girlfriend. They’d been dating since January in their sophomore year, and considering that it was now March of their junior year, that was quite a stretch. She had short, layered hair and bright jade-green eyes. Her fashion sense was famously good (Rose would never forget the legendary shouting match between Karkat and Kanaya about his turtleneck sweaters). Now, she stood up and grabbed her backpack, brushing her hair out of her face. She seemed resolute, which made Rose a little wary. Surely she wasn’t thinking of playing this game?

She got her supplied pack from the soldiers at the front and walked down the aisle to the door. She turned around and looked over everyone; her chestnut brown skin was looking abnormally pale and after a moment she turned and walked out the door. The sound of quick, hurried footsteps faded away.

“And now we wait for two minutes, and then send out Male Student No. 7, Gamzee Makara…”

And so it went. Dave Strider slipped on Kankri’s blood as he went and Karkat Vantas vomited. Rose would be one of the last ones out, and she internally debated about whom to give the note to as her classmates began a killing game. Already someone else might be dead...

She looked along the aisle in front of her. She could pass a note to Roxy, of course… yes, that was her best bet. They would have to meet up with Kanaya later.

When Hussie called out, “Female Student No. 3, Rosanna Lalonde,” she stood up. Her legs felt weak, and she grabbed her backpack, mentally running through her inventory. Book, change of clothes, phone, 100 boondollars that she was going to spend in D.C.…

As she passed Roxy’s desk, she lightly tapped it and let the paper fall onto it. She took a pack from Snowman and headed out the door.

The windows in the hallway were also boarded shut. The only light source was the classroom’s fluorescent lights. There were doors identical to the one she just passed through; there were probably classrooms identical to the one she had just been in.

At the end of the hallway was what was likely the staff or computer room. Inside, at least twenty more Special Defense Soldiers were on computers, or chatting to each other with coffee cups in their hands. They must have been monitoring the collars on the computers. If Rose could destroy the computers somehow, they could all leave…

As soon as this thought came to her, it faded, and Rose faced the reality that it just wasn’t going to happen. This was foolproof. There was no way to disable the Programme. She was sure that plenty of people had tried before her and plenty of people would try after.

Rose Lalonde turned to the wide double doors, took a deep breath, and prepared to face the outside world.

**33 students remaining**


End file.
